DOE announces $2.3 billion for clean tech jobs, including $16.9 million for Think

Yesterday, Think North America tweeted: "President Obama announces new energy tax credits: THINK chosen by U.S. DOE to receive $16.9 million tax credit for new U.S. facilities." The money is part of a new pile of funds – $2.3 billion worth – from the Recovery Act and intended for "clean-tech manufacturing jobs." The official DOE release says Think will use the money to:

Establish a U.S. manufacturing operation/facility (a vehicle assembly operation as well as facilities for fabricating vehicle components) for the Think City light-weight EV-dedicated vehicle for sale throughout North America.

This, we have to assume, means that the money will be used in Elkhart, IN. Other funded projects that relate to cleaner vehicles include:

$700,000 to Aeroenvironment to build a mobile charger "designed for on-road service trucks to provide a quick charge to stranded battery electric vehicles similar to an 'out-of-gas' situation" and advanced battery packs.

$1.2 million to PPG Industries for lower rolling resistance tires.

$300,000 to Rogers Foam Automotive Corporation to make "a component to be used in the thermal management system of Lithium Ion Battery assemblies for electrical vehicles."

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Anonymous

5 Years Ago

THINK is bringing good jobs for Americans. They should be applauded.

My next vehicle will be an electric car. If an American company can supply the batteries or the entire car my choice will be heavily weighted in their favor. If no American company makes an electric car I can afford then I will buy one from a foreign company.

Getting your family off foreign oil is the most patriotic thing you or I can do.

Anonymous

Anonymous

5 Years Ago

croÂ·nyÂ·ism audio (krn-zm) KEY

NOUN:

Favoritism shown to old friends without regard for their qualifications, as in political appointments to office.

In what way this government loan to a small business "cronyism"? What evidence to do you have of any illicit connections between THINK and the committees that approved this money. Were any of them on THINK boards? Is somebody someboy's girlfriend or husband? Any evidence of illegal donations or tit-for-tat gifts. Anyone own stocks or have land where the plants going to be built? Do you even have circumstantial evidence of anything improper?? ANYTHING other than your typical braindead BS?

Anonymous

Think managed to get the money. Is that fair to their competitors or is it a political payback to get the votes of the Indiana delegation for some other political issue? The day when we wondered whether our government is corrupt or not has passed, and now we just wonder to what extent they are corrupt. This governmental act subsidizing one manufacturer over others interferes with free market competition, and it nearly always makes things worse.

Anonymous

Harlan, you honestly believe there is free market competition in America?!?

I guess you forgot that the oil companies have received $$ Billions each year in tax breaks, and the free use of public lands for their profit. This has been going on for decades.

Companies receive tax breaks to close down factories and move jobs overseas.

Thanks to Clinton's NAFTA, our government has shifted $$ Billions to help US companies move their operations to Mexico. Ditto goodbye to American jobs.

Each year congressmen and women tack on $$ Millions to bills passed in the House and Senate that benefit one company or a group of companies over others. These earmarks have been rampant for more than two decades including Democratic and Republican administrations. Remember the "bridge to nowhere" that a certain politician requested then said she never requested?

Under the Bush administration, no bid contracts were handed out to KBR, Haliburton, Blackwater and many other corporations. Remember when Haliburton reported massive profits?

Remember a decade of deregulation and when the supposed regulators "looked the other way" and allowed corporations to get away with any violation of laws and the environment. This gave those favored companies a market edge, more profits or allowed them to fire a bunch of employees that would otherwise be needed to actually follow the laws of our country.

There is no free market in America. Anyone who thinks there is either is just plain deluded or is just not paying attention.

The only hope for our future is to make the unfair market preferences that always exist work FOR the greater good and not against it as has been the case. The preference should be toward whatever will get us off of foreign oil or help the environment that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us.

Anonymous

5 Years Ago

@harlanx6

You should be MORE concerned about the HUGE Tax subsidies Still Going to Huge Engined High Horsepower Pickup Trucks. You know the kind your lawn crew uses to haul a couple lawnmowers around town. Not only does it cost us money, but that's a huge gas usage issue. When we're trying to get off foreign oil this only Rewards Keeping us Tied to the Terrorists.

Anonymous

Easily the most idiotic nonsense currently peculating out the sleezeballs mouths. Never-mind the fact that this is a loan, does that mean every government grant, and even every government contract where one business is chosen over another, is unfair, corrupt, and dangerous to free market competition? Do you know how much the government spends on research and development that goes right to private companies?? Do you know how many *already profitable* industries are still heavily subsidized, with no expectation of anything being paid back? If this tiny **loan** to a small business offends you then what are you doing about the $60Bilion in subsidies that are going to the oil industry, or the billions going to agricultural mega-conglomerates, or the billions going the pharma industry? Republicans for the most part appear to be deliberately anti-intellectual, they don't even care if what they say is hypocritical, ignorant, and incredibly stupid as long as they can keep repeating it.

Anonymous

Anonymous

5 Years Ago

I'm happy with this overall.
I would like to see some straight research funded in universities - where you might get some real thinking outside the box.
Something like DARPA but from the energy department.
Then cheap and pretty open licensing on new tech developed by the program.

Anonymous

Anonymous

5 Years Ago

It's a low-interest loan. The Government is having to do this because the Too-Big-To-Fail Bank that received hundreds of times as much don't want to make loans to businesses that don't promise double-digit returns like Wall Street wants.